minor grumble: why, why, WHY do so many universities put their content on ItunesU, thus making it all but inaccessible for those of us not already using apple software.
Even dumping a pile of MP3s on a server somewhere would make your material much more accessible.
The actual content is in fact still stored on the school's server, just as you say -- a very common way of populating iTunes U is through RSS feeds from some internal system (not necessarily Apple-based).
If the content is free, there's no reason why they shouldn't make it available through alternate links/feeds. You could try complaining to the person in charge. :-)
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/tunesviewer-itunes-university-medi...
http://www.fritscher.ch/blog/2009/05/13/browsing-itunesu-wit...